top of page
Search
Writer's pictureCassie Osbourne

8 Things I Learnt From 'Thick as Thieves'


It’s difficult to believe that this time last week I was counting down the hours until I needed to get in the car to go to the theatre. In fact, after this week being utterly normal (dare I say, boring), all the rushing around and nerves and adrenaline of last week seems a distant memory. Almost dreamlike. However, happen it did. I mentioned in my previous blog that I learnt many a lesson from the process of ‘Thick as Thieves’ and the time has now come to properly reflect. I feel that it is only appropriate that I make my mistakes oath again so I, Cassie Osbourne, will never make these mistakes again. I will make new mistakes. More interesting mistakes. With that said, let’s jump in!



1. If you have a budgeting spreadsheet, actually use it!


Like a stereotypical creative, I hate thinking about money and profit margins but I have to acknowledge that both of these things are absolutely vital when running a business so one of the first things I did when planning this play was sit down and work out a budget. Admittedly, the bulk of the work and push to do this came from my partner but it was done nevertheless. At a glance, I could see how much money I had given myself to play with, where it was going to go (cast payment, marketing, venues, etc) and how much of my own income I would have to put in each month for this budget to be realistic. It was really, really useful. However, I stopped filling it in as soon as rehearsals actually started. The point of having it was so I could track my spending and see where I would need to balance things and where I was going over budget (I probably don’t need to explain how a budget works to most of you) but because I didn’t do that, I don’t really know how much I have spent. I can have a guess certainly – I know that we were waaaaay under budget for costume but then I also know that rehearsal venue and cast pay was more as I had to make up for lost rehearsal time (more on that a little later). The most annoying thing is, I know just how much this is going to bite me in the arse when the time comes to fill in my tax return. Ironically, I don’t have the budget for an accountant.



2. When booking a theatre look closely, think carefully and do your research


The amount that I want to say on this subject would fill up the word count, so this is going to be next week’s blog. Stay tuned, there is tea. Floors that weren't affixed, toilets that were unsanitary, fire lights that were covered over, community theatre who wouldn't sell to their 'community' and a manager who couldn't get to Manchester quick enough.


There are other issues but in the meantime, I’ll just leave you with this… Don't worry, I brought receipts.



3. Sometimes, you’re going to have to be assertive


Right so, I am one of those people who will get really annoyed and rant to other people about how annoying something or someone is, but I will rarely do anything about it. I absolutely hate confrontation so I can ultimately be a bit of a pushover. I already knew that this was something that I would absolutely have to work on in my personal life anyway but when you’re running a business where your own money is at stake then you can’t afford to let people mess you around. I am going to go into some specifics with next week’s blog but, believe me, they weren’t the only ones that I had trouble with (they are, however, the only one that I am willing to go into any detail on). You have to remember that the business that you are running is yours and, while understanding and compromising on things is a really good thing to be able to do, ultimately you are the only one who is going to be negatively affected if things go south. You have to know when is the right time for sympathy and when you have to put your foot down, which can sometimes mean severing ties with people. But we adapt, we find new ways to do things and while this is definitely uncomfortable, it can often work out for the better.



Licensed from Shutterstock

4. It can take anywhere from three weeks to one-hundred years to get the rights to something


Ok so some companies are absolutely BRILLIANT about getting back to you when it comes to licensing something. I’ve talked previously about Nick Hern being fantastic but Tamara, who has been my contact for both ‘Thick as Thieves’ and ‘Kindertransport’, has been really helpful. She always gets back to me super quickly and has been lovely and accommodating when helping me get professional rights for a play even when I’ve accidentally applied for amateur. Generally, you want to go straight to the playwright’s agent for that, which seems really obvious now that I’ve written it out but at the time my only experience had been with Nick Hern and that worked out last time. However, other companies are less helpful. I wanted to licence ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ by Nina Simone but when I emailed about the rights back in November, I accidentally sent it to the German branch. To their credit, they did forward that on to the appropriate people pretty much immediately as well as sending me the correct email address. After a week of that email being sent, I sent a follow up. Then another. And then another. And then yet another. To this day, I have still not heard back from the English branch. Interesting from a company that prides itself on making music licensing easy for everyone. Shout out to Epidemic Sound who single-handedly saved our marketing music. Oh, and I'm using that seemly unrelated image because Shutterstock have tied me in for a year so enjoy our picture of Karen's kids.



5. Fight scenes need to be choreographed early on


There’s not really a huge amount to say about this one. It basically boils down to the more time your actors have to rehearse a fight, the more comfortable they will be with it which means it will look better. We all loved the fight scene, both choreographing and rehearsing it, but it really should have been something we did in the third week rather than when we were starting to do runs and stagger throughs. I am also now actively looking into where I can do stage combat courses as the one I did was about six years ago and I’ve realised just how much I’ve missed doing combat. If anyone knows of any happening, please leave a comment to let me know!



6. Day jobs are great but not at the expense of your business or your health


So I talked in my first blog about the importance of not biting off more than you can chew (TLDR: I wanted to act in the play but then realised that doing that in addition to everything else would be absolute madness [link here]) but it seemed that I only sort of learnt my lesson. In September last year, I started looking for a more regular day job so that I could stop stressing about money and I signed up to an agency that would place me in schools as a TA. This was supposed to be really flexible, with me choosing what days I wanted to work (although I was told that if I wanted to work it was pretty much guaranteed) and be in a different school most days, however at the end of December they approached me about working in a junior school close to where I live who needed someone to be consistent. I liked the idea of this as it meant that I would have some sense of financial security so I said yes, was placed in year 5 (my favourite year group to work with) and was there every day through the Spring term. In fact, I am still working there but only for the next few weeks as I will be stopping after half term. Whilst I absolutely love working with the kids (who I have really got to know and adore), I have found that trying to put on a show while doing it is incredibly difficult.


I would have rehearsals in Brixton three evenings which means I would get home from school at about 4:15pm and then only have about an hour, during which time I had to eat dinner and do any marketing or admin for the company that I needed to do, before I had to set out again. Rehearsals would end at about 10pm so I would get home at around 11pm (that’s if the Thameslink is working and on time) only to be woken up by my alarm at 6am the next day. The only downtime that I had was on the train journey to and from places. The company absolutely suffered as a result of this as I was giving what should be a full-time job part-time hours (probably less). I could have been building up my network, handing out flyers, making or sourcing props, and in the latter weeks working out what was going to come next. But I couldn’t during the week because I simply didn’t have the time. So that just left the weekends, time when I should have been able to relax and just enjoy time with my partner but, again, I couldn’t relax because I had to catch up with all of the things that I hadn’t been doing in the week.


Inevitably, this lack of rest took its toll on my health. I had to cancel two rehearsals because I had been sick (which then meant I had to pay extra money to play catch up) and towards the end I was having several tension headaches a day with one day the week before the end of term where I nearly passed out in front of a classroom full of children…twice. There are so many people who out of necessity have to work multiple jobs and I have so much respect for them, however I am privileged enough to be in a position where I can choose not to. I may work one or two days every few weeks if I desperately want some kind of income when a show is happening, but on the whole, I will be taking a huge step back and just focusing on one job at a time.



7. Flyering is hard and websites don’t want to help you


Basically, every borough has its own set of rules with what they will allow and what they won’t allow in terms of advertising, especially when it comes to handing out flyers. Some councils are very clear on their rules – the Westminster council website, for example, is incredibly helpful – others, not so much. As King’s Cross is only four stops away from Wood Green on the Piccadilly Line, I wanted to go and hand out flyers there but the section for this on the Camden Council website was so vague that I had no idea if I would be allowed to and, let’s face it, it would hardly be difficult to trace the leaflets back to me when they had the company website and QR code in bold lettering on them. Next time I will definitely get my ducks in a row a lot sooner and ask. Don’t worry, when I know, you will know!



8. Don’t leave large set pieces until the last minute…also carpet tiles are expensive!


Not really much to say about this one other than we bought the carpet for the set three days before get in (although with all the bank holidays, it may as well have been the day before). We were very lucky that we were able to find the grey carpet that we used so easily and for such an affordable price or things could have gone very wrong – actors fighting on uneven flooring wrong! It also just pulled the space together and made clear where the stage area was. But seriously, £50 for twenty 50×50cm tiles is ridiculous!



So that’s it! My list of things that I have learnt from ‘Thick as Thieves’ – don’t worry, there will be many, many more blogs like this full of my various screw ups. Until then, keep an eye on the website. We will hopefully have some exciting announcements coming out soon…


132 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page